


möbius

by LightningStarborne, yourlocalbirb



Series: In Knowledge, Power AU [2]
Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Looping AU, its a looping au, ofc theres major character death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-11
Updated: 2019-04-11
Packaged: 2020-01-11 09:22:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18427673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LightningStarborne/pseuds/LightningStarborne, https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourlocalbirb/pseuds/yourlocalbirb
Summary: companion drabble piece to In Knowledge, Power.La Volpe remembers, even when others do not. Again and again and again.He wishes he didn't.





	möbius

He is no longer exactly sure when it first began, or perhaps, to be more accurate, when _he_ first _noticed_ it. He cannot say if it was like resurfacing after a dive into the Arno in stormy weather, like that first gasping breath of air, so cold and shocking to the lungs, or whether it was a slow, gradual realization, creeping in like the first signs of winter.

 

All he knows is that the cycle begins- and ends- with this family who the world somehow pivots around.

 

He tails the young Auditore into the square. Overhead, the Signoria looms, and in the square below him, Giovanni Auditore faces the gallows with grim determination.

 

_He has been here before._

 

_He will be here again._

 

* * *

 

Giovanni dies.

 

Ezio is the prophet.

 

_The cycle continues._

 

* * *

 

He tries saving them. He takes Giovanni aside, warns him of the coming threat. Giovanni takes his advice, and the family flee, under pretense of visiting their kin in Monteriggioni.

 

Giovanni lives.

 

The prophet languishes in unwitting obscurity, and the Borgia, unhindered by the non-threat the disorganized and estranged Brotherhood presents, gain possession of the Pieces of Eden, and thus, the world. Giovanni Auditore and his eldest son are slain in a failed attempt to regain the Apple. 

 

Italia falls under the Templars’ heels- and Ezio Auditore with it, to a Templar’s blade in some alleyway in Firenze like a common dog; the sorry inheritance of the last Auditore, unwitting heir to a war he never even knew was being fought.

 

_The cycle continues._

 

* * *

 

On the third cycle- _or is it the fifth? The tenth? He’s lost track-_ he takes Giovanni aside, warns him to leave the city. He is careful not to mention the possible threat to his family.

 

Giovanni lives.

 

His sons, Ezio included, die.

 

Claudia is the prophet, but stagnates, unknown and untaught in the face of her father's refusal to bring her into the brotherhood.

 

The brotherhood diminishes into obscurity.

 

_The cycle continues._

 

* * *

 

Ezio-the-Assassin is the Prophet, and the future Mentor of the Brotherhood, who will bring them back from the verge of collapse.

 

Ezio-the-carefree is unburdened, happy, his family alive, but by his father's express command, he will never know the life of an Assassin- never reach the true depth of character and quality Volpe has seen him with before- never learn of the Vault and the secrets hidden therein, never pass along the direly important message- but neither will he ever suffer the needless, senseless waste and desolation the Borgia cause in their haste to reach it.

 

Free from sorrow.

 

As morality and empathy would say he _should_ be, by all rights.

 

Giovanni is the catalyst, the lynchpin, his life and death the defining line.

 

Either the brotherhood loses a Maestro but gains a Mentor, or Ezio never knows pain but never becomes the better man he is meant to be and if there is a way for the two realities to peacefully coexist then Volpe cannot find it.

 

* * *

 

All but one of the nooses _snap_ , deliberately, subtly weakened, and Volpe shudders, but forces himself to keep looking. The other _Maestro_ deserves at least that much.

 

Volpe has, indirectly or not, intentionally killed his oldest friend.

 

Ezio is the prophet.

 

_The cycle continues._

 

* * *

 

"-something is going on," Giovanni tells him, a strange, frantic feverish light in his eyes. He has accosted Volpe on the rooftop, suddenly, without warning.

 

This is not a part of the cycle.

 

Volpe freezes in fear, his good mood souring. "I'm sure it's nothing," he tells him, stepping back.

 

"There is!" Giovanni insists. "Can't you _feel_ it?"

 

"No." Volpe backs further away. Worse than the fear of an eternity of loss and torment is the fear that he might not be the only one to remember.

 

He is the only one.

 

_He does not want to be._

 

He has to be.

 

_It’s better this way._

 

Giovanni dies.  Ezio is the prophet.

 

_The cycle continues._

 

* * *

 

He tails the young Auditore into the square. The crossbow sits strangely on his back, and his skin crawls at the unfamiliar weight of it.  

 

He settles into position, and waits. Overhead, the Signoria looms, and in the square below him, Giovanni Auditore faces the gallows with grim determination.

 

A steady pulse of rust colored enemy-red-gold outlines his target, though he imagines he could make the shot with his eyes closed by now.

 

_He has been here before._

 

He loads the crossbow, takes aim, and fires.

 

Rodrigo Borgia, in a moment of poetic irony, stumbles, knocked backwards by the force of the bolt’s impact, and a broken neck puts an end to his life and ambitions in the very same moment as his enemy.

 

La Volpe lowers the crossbow.

 

_He will be here again._

 

* * *

 

Cesare Borgia becomes ten times the monster his father ever was, driving ambition and a bloody campaign for vengeance a dark and uncanny parallel to Ezio’s own.

 

Unlike Ezio, he does not show mercy.

 

The last of the House of Auditore make their final, desperate stand in Monteriggioni- and fall.

 

There is no prophet.

 

_The cycle continues._

 

* * *

 

"-something is going on," Giovanni tells him, a strange, frantic feverish light in his eyes.

 

Volpe freezes in fear, his good mood souring.

 

"Something is _always_ going on, my friend," he tells him, stepping forward, clapping his friend good naturedly on the shoulder.

 

* * *

 

 

"I'm sorry, old friend," he whispers, hoarsely, bitterly, watching as a young man buried his family in secret in the dead of night. Again.

 

Giovanni dies. Ezio is the prophet.

 

_The cycle continues._


End file.
